I previously described local government reorganisation as the Labour Government taking a wrecking ball to our local councils. This continues to be my view, and we don’t yet know what the shattered pieces are going to look like, although unless we have yet another Labour U-turn, a government announcement is expected within the next fortnight.
Given how many changes and U-turns there’s already been, it’s felt hard to have any certainty about the rest of this journey of local government reorganisation and devolution. Therefore, it is possible the announcement is delayed or that the whole process is, we just don’t know anymore.
If the timetable holds with the announcement made this month about what geographical area our future Unitary Authority will cover, it should at least provide some certainty about the subsequent scale of the upheaval and disruption to bring it about.
The Government consulted on three options. By far the best option is a whole West Sussex Unitary, that would cost £30 million less to run than the other main option and stop County Council services having to be split into two, risking huge disruption and poorer services. This is the sensible option, much more so than the expensive Crawley/Horsham/Mid-Sussex option and certainly than the bonkers Crawley/Horsham/Chichester option, that would see Crawley in the same Council with Selsey, but not with Pease Pottage and Copthorne.
The Government have one shot at getting this right, so if there was a delay, I wouldn’t criticise that, as it’s important to get this right, so if more evidence needs to be found to better inform the final decision, that would be better than getting it wrong.
The Labour Government thankfully did get one thing right in this process, in that they ruled out the Crawley Labour proposal at Crawley Borough Council, to bounce Crawley into Surrey and become part of Reigate and Banstead, so that we would have a council boundary with London that would be ripe for a future extension of the London boundary to incorporate Gatwick and Crawley. Will getting the main decision right be too much to hope for?
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
11th March 2026
